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Vile reality of KKK hatred was on display in Gettysburg: Allison Dougherty

KKKRALLY12_0628_PAC

Members of the Traditional Rebel Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Braddock Heights, Maryland, protest north of Meade's Headquarters in Gettysburg National Military Park on Saturday, June 28, 2014.
Paul Chaplin | pchaplin@pennlive.com
(PAUL CHAPLIN)

Never in my life have I stood in the presence of another American who said, much less hollered into a bullhorn, such a thing.

BY ALLISON DOUGHERTY | Special to PennLive

On June 28, I attended my first Ku Klux Klan rally when I covered for PennLive a protest rally organized in Gettysburg by the Traditional Rebel Knights of Braddock Heights, Md.

So there's no confusion, I'm a freelancer, so I have veto power over most assignments I'm asked to cover. This, I wanted to cover. Why?

A different group, the Traditional American Knights of the KKK, has been sniffing around Camp Hill and Fairview Township – two places for which I provide coverage support for PennLive/The Patriot-News, and two places I live pretty much right in between. I wanted a closer look.

Two days later, I'm wondering what I was thinking. I'm also, two days later, a bit lightheaded, outside the workings of my brain that I can't describe. I'm only sporadically eating and sleeping. I'm writing. I'm writing.

A woman, a very upset observer at the rally, said it was like watching zoo animals. It's not. There is no snide, snarky comment that could even begin to deflect what happened Saturday. I thought I knew what would go on at the rally, but I didn't, really. And depending on your place in the gender, religion, race, sexual orientation-coded hierarchy in this country, you probably wouldn't either.

Saturday wasn't the movies and it wasn't a grainy clip of George Wallace, circa 1963, either. Have a seat. You need to know what was said in Gettysburg.

I heard this, yelled by a Klan member to a group of about 30 to 50 onlookers: "I, myself, will have a [sic] ethnic cleansing ... you haven't seen nothing. You think Hitler put them in the ovens? We're gonna put them in the ground."

On my tape of the rally, you can hear me convulsively whisper, "My God." I'd been listening to about 25 minutes of them at this point. Never in my life have I stood in the presence of another American who said, much less hollered into a bullhorn, such a thing. Who says that?

Or maybe this comment: "I hope your daughter does die at the hands of a savage Negro."

I think the following almost made me faint. Somewhere in the middle of it, I gasped when a Klan member said: "We hate the [N-word], we hate the [Hispanic], we hate the Jew, we hate the [gays] and if you support them or sympathize with them, well, then we hate you, too. White power."

It doesn't get any better. The Klan group had later plans to protest at a LGBT picnic in Frederick, Md.

All of those people, some probably with their children, getting up in the morning, packing their things and going out into the sunshine for a celebration. This is what one Klan member said after announcing their side trip to Frederick: "How can gay bashing be a crime? I love to do it."

Or this bit about illegal immigration: "Put 'em back on the bus. If they come back, send 'em home in a pine box. As they cross this border, put a bullet in their head...Immigration can be fixed in 30 days. You just gotta have some guts to do it."

I'm not a naive woman. I know people talk like this, but hearing it is different. Maybe you think you know. Maybe you're offended. Maybe you think I shouldn't repeat in detail what I heard, beyond what already went into my Saturday post on PennLive.

But, newsflash folks: If you weren't at Saturday's rally, you probably don't know; I figure you damn well are offended; but, most of all, there are those who have been repeating similar opinions over-and-over again for generations. This time, I wanted to make sure you heard it.

Allison Dougherty is a free-lance reporter whose work regularly appears on PennLive.